“You see, I’m like you, Esther,” explained the young man.  “I’m not fitted for the narrow life that suits my father and mother and my sister.  They’ve got no ideas beyond the house, and religion, and all that sort of thing.  What do you think my father wanted me to be?  A minister!  Think of it!  Ha! ha! ha!  Me a minister!  I actually did go for a couple of terms to Jews’ College.  Oh, yes, you remember!  Why, I was there when you were a school-teacher and got taken up by the swells.  But our stroke of fortune came soon after yours.  Did you never hear of it?  My, you must have dropped all your old acquaintances if no one ever told you that!  Why, father came in for a couple of thousand pounds!  I thought I’d make you stare.  Guess who from?”

“I give it up,” said Esther.

“Thank you.  It was never yours to give,” said Leonard, laughing jovially at his wit.  “Old Steinwein—­you remember his death.  It was in all the papers; the eccentric old buffer, who was touched in the upper story, and used to give so much time and money to Jewish affairs, setting up lazy old rabbis in Jerusalem to shake themselves over their Talmuds.  You remember his gifts to the poor—­six shillings sevenpence each because he was seventy-nine years old and all that.  Well, he used to send the pater a basket of fruit every Yomtov.  But he used to do that to every Rabbi, all around, and my old man had not the least idea he was the object of special regard till the old chap pegged out.  Ah, there’s nothing like Torah, after all.”

“You don’t know what you may have lost through not becoming a minister,” suggested Esther slily.

“Ah, but I know what I’ve gained.  Do you think I could stand having my hands and feet tied with phylacteries?” asked Leonard, becoming vividly metaphoric in the intensity of his repugnance to the galling bonds of orthodoxy.  “Now, I do as I like, go where I please, eat what I please.  Just fancy not being able to join fellows at supper, because you mustn’t eat oysters or steak?  Might as well go into a monastery at once.  All very well in ancient Jerusalem, where everybody was rowing in the same boat.  Have you ever tasted pork, Esther?”

“No,” said Esther, with a faint smile.

“I have,” said Leonard.  “I don’t say it to boast, but I have had it times without number.  I didn’t like it the first time—­thought it would choke me, you know, but that soon wears off.  Now I breakfast off ham and eggs regularly.  I go the whole hog, you see.  Ha! ha! ha!”

“If I didn’t see from your card you’re not living at home, that would have apprised me of it,” said Esther.

“Of course, I couldn’t live at home.  Why the guvnor couldn’t bear to let me shave.  Ha! ha! ha!  Fancy a religion that makes you keep your hair on unless you use a depilatory.  I was articled to a swell solicitor.  The old man resisted a long time, but he gave in at last, and let me live near the office.”